SOURCE: "Housekeeping," in The Village Voice, Vol. 38, No. 22, July 1, 1993, pp. 60-1.

In the following review, Selman applauds Van Duyn's body of work, and offers favorable assessments of If It Be Not I and Firefall.

When married couples came to my parents' home for card-playing afternoons, the husbands and wives parted at the front door like two rivers. The gulf between them seemed unnavigable—their card games were as different as their drinks, laughs, and speech levels. Women whose identities were usually defined by the consistency of their noodle puddings, were, until dinnertime, free. Literally: I remember my Aunt Ida rising up from the canasta table and, in an outrageous act of independence, lifting her dress and stripping off her girdle. My delight in Aunt Ida's act—her equivalent of a man rolling up his sleeves to deal the hand—has lasted over 20 years.

Women alone together can be...